By Andrea Shalal and Jarrett Renshaw
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Former Consultant Liz Cheney, who bucked her Republican Occasion to strongly criticize President-elect Donald Trump and a few of his allies, was certainly one of 20 individuals awarded the Presidential Residents Medal, one of many nation’s highest civilian honors, by President Joe Biden on Thursday.
The medal is given to People for his or her service to the nation or its residents, the White Home mentioned.
Biden, talking within the East Room of the White Home, praised the honorees for braveness, management, service and empathy.
“I think it’s pretty damn simple: Our democracy begins and ends with the duties of citizenship,” he mentioned. “Our work continues.”
The presidential medals, which undergo a much less rigorous approval course of than Medals of Honor or acts of clemency, give a president the chance to honor individuals who have fought for causes he championed.
Cheney is a one-time Republican member of Congress who served as vice chair of the Home of Representatives choose committee that investigated the Jan. 6, 2021, assault on the U.S. Capitol by Trump supporters.
She obtained a standing ovation at Thursday’s ceremony. In October, she urged People to reject Trump’s “depraved cruelty” as she campaigned in help of Democratic presidential candidate Vice President Kamala Harris, who later misplaced to Trump.
Media stories have mentioned Biden is contemplating a pre-emptive pardon to guard her from retribution by the subsequent administration. Trump, who takes workplace on Jan. 20, mentioned final month he backed a name for the FBI to analyze Cheney over her function main the congressional probe.
Different winners of the medal included Democratic Consultant Bennie G. Thompson who served because the Jan. 6 Home choose committee chairman, legal professional Mary Bonauto who argued the landmark marriage-equality case earlier than the Supreme Court docket, ladies’s rights activist Eleanor Smeal and Evan Wolfson, a frontrunner of the marriage-equality motion.
Veterans, health-care advocates and former lawmakers with shut, decades-long ties to Biden have been additionally on the checklist akin to former Democratic senators Ted Kaufman, Chris Dodd and Invoice Bradley.
In a separate ceremony, Biden spoke of the 235 judges he nominated who have been confirmed, together with a document variety of ladies and folks of coloration. This adopted the judiciary’s ideological shift to the correct throughout Trump’s first time period as president.
Senate Majority Chief Chuck Schumer mentioned the confirmations could be certainly one of Biden’s “most consequential accomplishments.”
“The good news is that these judges will be a barrier against attacks on our democratic institutions,” he mentioned. “These judges will have the first and often decisive impact on cases involving voting rights in elections and democracy writ large.”
